Typically, online publishers, such as online media companies and other publishers of articles, stories, audio/visual programming, and other electronic content, provide online web page space and mechanisms for viewers to comment on, or otherwise interact with, that published content. Users may generate so called “user-generated content,” which may be related to the subject matter of the publisher's content or other electronic content, or only slightly related to that content. The user-generated content may include textual narrative, opinions, facts, etc., and/or electronic recordings of video and/or audio. Likewise, the publisher's content may include any combination of textual narrative, opinions, facts, etc., and/or electronic recordings of video and/or audio. Users may interact with publisher's content and generate new, related content by interacting with web servers using one or more mobile or computer devices connected to the Internet.
Some articles attract significant user-generated content in the form of comments, which may sometimes appear in numbers too great for one person to browse through all of those comments. In addition, some user-generated comments may form a conversation, i.e., by replying to one another, and some conversations may be especially worth noting for their ability to invite more user interactions. The prevalent way to present comments is in order of recency (e.g., more recent comments on the top), sometimes causing other interesting of insightful comments to disappear. Because of how comments are typically displayed in sequential order and in un-nested conversations, it can be difficult for readers to identify important or interesting comments or conversations. In addition, replies to comments are often indented to show that the comment is a reply to another comment. If the reply is indented by, e.g., one unit or tab, then the reply might be a reply to an original or “parent” comment. If the reply is indented by, e.g., two or more units or tabs, then the reply might be a reply to another reply. Regardless of the number or combination of original comments, replies to original comments, and/or replies to replies, any or all of those comments and replies may be displayed in sequential order based on the timestamp of the comment or reply (i.e., the time when the commenting server received the comment or reply from the respective user). As a result, it can be difficult for readers of comments to determine when a comment is a reply, and to identify which comment or reply a particular reply is in response to. Web pages that have extensive commenting can become unmanageable for users to read, causing decreased user engagement and resulting disadvantages for advertising revenue.
Accordingly, a need exists for systems and methods for processing and displaying user-generated content, such as comments submitted over the Internet. More specifically, a need exists for systems and methods for processing user-generated content to generate interfaces of hierarchically arranged comments.